Photo Credit: Hartwig HKD via Compfight

A belief is described as the ideal that individuals follow as true and can change accordingly by the circumstances that others create with their actions. In the movie, A River Runs Through It, Norman reevaluates his respect for Paul after he saves Norman’s relation with Jessie when he intervenes with her before she leaves. As well as in Attack on Titan, Eren’s beliefs were drastically altered after that faithful day when his mother offers her life to the Titan for the survival of him and Misaka. When hardship arises, the choice of action that others take in response can shift an individual’s beliefs in a positive direction. This is evident through Robert Redford’s film, A River Runs Through it, by examining the character of Norman after Paul helps him with reconnecting with Jessie, as well as Tetsurō Araki’s anime, Attack on Titan, by examining the protagonist Eren after his mother decides to sacrifice herself to the Titan to save Eren and Misaka from further harm.

The choices that others make can influence a positive shift in an individual’s beliefs, like how Paul influences Jessie to reconcile with Norman which sways Norman’s views about Paul. This took place after the scene where Jessie takes the train tracks back to his residents as a punishment for Norman returning Neal, undressed and drunk, to her. At that point, it seems that Norman was about end his first relationship in a bittersweet manner until Paul intercepts Jessie with his car. He uses his charm and words to sway Jessie into assuaging with Norman as a way to give a second chance for their relation to continue and flourish. Originally, Norman was starting to believe that Paul was become more and more out of control with all of the problems that he accumulated over the time that he wasn’t there to keep him out of trouble. Norman also acknowledges Paul’s actions and respects him more not just as an artist of a unique style of fly-fishing, but for what he did for him than what he did at Lolo’s during the time that he was away. This indicates how nowadays, people are quick to judge others by appearance and their “mask” of an attitude that usually creates the stereotypes that others believe in by how they are depicted in the media. These stereotypical beliefs can be broken in the right way by the actions of the ones who are marginalized by society.

Besides Norman’s beliefs about Paul being shifted, in Attack on Titan, Eren experiences a similar moment, but with his faith in humanity. A mother’s protective reaction to adversity can trigger a sudden shift in beliefs and values. After the breaching of the outermost wall of the fortified city, Wall Maria, the Titans, heartless humanoid beasts that are at least several stories high and devour humans not as a food source but as a pleasure, invades the community in a raging manner. Eren realizes that his home was in the invaded territory and hurries back to his home with Misaka, his adoptive sister, to see its condition and their mother. After arriving and desperately trying to free their mother from under the fallen structure, one of Titans tramples to their direction. Noticing that she was crippled from the waist down, she begs Eren and Misaka to just leave her there and continue to survive while knowing that she’ll just slow them down even if she was able to free herself. Eren and Misaka escapes safely while they helplessly witness their mother falling victim to the terrifying Titan who consumes her alive mercilessly. The mother’s choice of a heroic sacrifice plus the effect of childhood trauma influences Eren to have more faith in humanity and the belief that it’s his responsibility to protect the human race by training to become one of the specialized soldiers who are trained to fend the Titans. Choices of action made during sudden and dangerous events such as the life or death situation that they experienced during the invasion of the Titans have more impacting effects emotionally and mentally on others than most other choices made during their lifetime. In order to continue to pursue his new beliefs, more choices of actions have to be taken to manifest his beliefs.

Even though the relationship between these two texts isn’t very obvious at first, the way that Norman’s beliefs were redirected positively by Paul’s intervention and the way that Eren’s beliefs were directed positively after his mother’s sacrifice are very similar to each other.  The effect range of the adversity for both are on opposite ends since in A River Runs Through It, the adversity was set to a personal scale for both Norman and Jessie while in Attack on Titan, the adversity was affecting an entire population of people. The choices that Eren’s mother have made are considered as selfless acts as his mother gave her life in exchange for the safety of Eren and Misaka. Also Paul’s choices are considered as selfless Paul uses his best qualities as a charmer to persuade Jessie to forgive Norman by saying how lucky she is to have Norman as a boyfriend as a way to save their happiness. The actions that Paul and Eren’s mother created positive influences to Norman’s and Eren’s beliefs respectively as Norman began to see Paul as someone important in his life not just as his younger brother and Eren avenging for his mother’s death by protecting others from the hands of the Titans as a specialized soldier who are trained to fight the Titans. Despite the different genres and situations of both texts, the same conditions have been met to create the positive shift in the protagonists’ beliefs.

Adversity in life is inevitable. One’s actions in response to the adversity can positively alter other people’s beliefs significantly. Whether it’s Paul’s involvement in his first relationship with Jessie or the mother’s plea for them to survive and having to unfortunately witness the gruesome death as they leave her behind, both events resulted in the positive shift in beliefs for the protagonists. Norman refers to Paul a lot as he retells his life story to the world just as Eren joins the military to take action against the Titans for who were the cause for his mother’s premature and bloody death as both are the result of the actions taken by someone close to them.